Inconsequential
by mrasaki
Summary: Tensions rise. -Squall/Zell, Seifer-
1. Chapter 1

Inconsequential Matters

FF8 (Sq/S, Sq/Z)

By rtuko

rtuko@email.com

complete 10/10/03

            Squall was asleep, and that was just fine with Zell. The triangular face was creased in what looked like pain, the tanned skin contrasting dark against the sterile white gauze covering his eyes and forehead. A gloved hand was thrown carelessly against the pillow, the other underneath his cheek. 

            From where Zell was standing in the doorway, he could see the mess of Squall's hair where dried blood had glued the strands together. Doc Kadowaki had wiped off Squall's face, but apparently hadn't bothered with the rest of it.

            The room reeked of Potion. Zell supposed the wound was too superficial and the medicine too expensive to use a Hi-Potion. A pity--Hi-Potions didn't smell nearly as bad.

            Squall moaned and turned over onto his other side. Zell could hear the stiffened hair crunching and crackling.

            The room was hot and humid. The air conditioning had probably gone out again. 

            Squall spoke suddenly, and Zell jumped. "Who are you?" 

            Zell sputtered and stepped backward, feeling sick. 

Of course Squall wouldn't know who he was--after all, Zell was only in his class and hadn't spoken more than two words to him in the years they had attended Garden. "I---I-- I'm--" He noticed something. _Great, Zell, why don't you make sure first that he's _awake_ before you make a fool of yourself?_

            "Come back!" Squall said, a note of frustration entering his voice. "Who are you?"

            _He'll have a conversation with a total stranger and he won't even look at you. Score one for the loser_, a voice that sounded like Seifer said in his head. 

            What was he doing here? Zell sighed. He looked at the little vase of wilting daffodils in his hand and felt abjectly stupid. What had he been thinking? That Squall would look up with a smile on his face and gush out his appreciation for Zell's thoughtfulness?

            _Yes, that's exactly what you thought,_ Seifer's voice said.

            "I must've been smokin' something," Zell muttered, turning to leave. _Oh ho, you come all this way and spend your money and you aren't even gonna leave your pathetic flowers, chicken?_

            "Shut up," Zell growled.

            "Talking to yourself again, stupidnik?"

            Zell jumped and nearly dropped his flowers. Seifer smirked, though it clearly hurt him to do so. A large square gauze bandage matching Squall's was swathed across his forehead and fastened there with surgical tape. "You sure you passed that mental health test, or didja cheat?"

            "Shut up, Seifer," Zell glowered. Yelling would wake Squall, and he didn't want that. He didn't want Squall to know that he'd been here at all.

            "Oh, I'm pierced with that witty comeback, chicken." Seifer was blocking the doorway.

            "Move, Seifer." He tried to ease through the gap between Seifer and the doorjamb, but Seifer simply shifted and pushed the smaller blonde backward with a fingertip.

            "What're you doing here, huh?" 

            Zell stopped, and tried to hide the flowers behind his back without being too obvious about it. "None of your business." He looked up and glared at the taller cadet. 

            Seifer looked at him. His glance swept from Zell's reddened face to the yellow flowers peeking out from behind his back to the way Zell was shifting uneasily from foot to foot. The opaque eyes narrowed. "So that's how it is," he murmured.   

            Zell jerked. "He's my _friend, you...you... pervert!" His ears felt like they were on fire--a detail, he knew, Seifer wouldn't miss._

            Seifer leaned an arm against the wall just outside the doorway and flicked a finger at a daffodil. "Funny, last I heard, Squall didn't have any friends," he said, his face unamused. "And even if he did, I highly doubt that _you_ would be one of them." He smiled then, and took one of the yellow flowers before Zell could protest. "Or do you disagree?"

            "And how the fuck would you know?" Zell snapped, his fingers tensing on the glass vase, wishing this conversation was happening somewhere other than five feet from Squall, or not at all. 

            Seifer snapped the blossom off its stalk. "Let's see. He loves Zell," pulling one petal off and dropping it onto the floor. "Or--He loves Zell _not_." Another petal gone. He grabbed Zell's wrist with one hand and pinned it to the wall as the smaller blonde grabbed for the flower. "Tsk, tsk, Zell, didn't the instructors ever tell you that you're too impatient? And you need to learn how to share."

             "You're such a bastard!" Zell hissed, still keeping his voice low, jerking his arm away.

            "Yes, probably," Seifer replied, his expression not changing. He quirked an eyebrow, a gesture undermined by the large bandage covering his forehead. "You gonna keep your paws to yourself, or should I scream rape?"

            Zell said nothing, only flinching as Seifer continued to rip petals off. "Ah--hey, lookit this, he loves Zell again." Drop. "But no, not anymore!" Drop. Seifer paused, one petal left. "Well.... what do you know..." He picked the fifth petal and lifted it to Zell's down-turned face. "Want it?" he murmured, serious now. "The culmination of your dreams...the great, lion-hearted Squall on your arm..."

            Zell knocked his hand aside. "You forgot one," he said, in a harsh voice not his own, and snatched the remains from Seifer's hand. He pulled off the cup-shaped part of the blossom, crumpled it, and let it fall to the floor.

            "Ah," Seifer murmured. "We're being realistic here." He was no longer blocking the doorway, but neither noticed. "Though that technically doesn't count as a petal, I think." 

            "What," Zell asked slowly, the question just occurring to him, "are _you_ doing here, Seifer?"

            Seifer looked at him again for a long moment, another searching look that shifted over his shoulder to the young man lying unconscious on the bed. The expression that Zell couldn't identify wiped away like a chalkboard and a bitter smile tugged at Seifer's mouth.

            "To talk of many things," he said, low enough that Zell could barely hear him, "Of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax--of cabbages--and kings..."

            Zell studied him. _'So that's how it is'_, _indeed_. "I didn't know you liked poetry," he said instead, keeping his tone neutral. _Didn't think you were smart enough to know what poetry was, either, he nearly added, before he remembered Instructor Trepe's choice advice about keeping his trap shut and his ass unbruised, and snapped his mouth closed._

            "You don't know a lot of things," Seifer snarled at him. Then he smiled, a smile Zell had never ever seen on another person before and hoped never to see in the future. It was bitter, bright with cruelty and anger, and only tempered by a profound sadness in his eyes that Zell was sure Seifer didn't know was there. "For instance," Seifer whispered, leaning in so close that Zell bumped his head on the wall behind him trying to lean away, "you can pine away all you like, but Squall _doesn't want men_." He stood upright again and regarded Zell with that unnerving smile. "Because, you see," he continued, rubbing his bandage angrily so that red blossomed on the white gauze, "I found that out up close and personal." 

            "Or," Zell breathed, unable to tear his eyes away from Seifer, "Perhaps he doesn't want _you."_

            "I wonder how he inspires that kind of love," Seifer said quietly, almost to himself, as he examined the blood on his fingers. "He certainly doesn't try." To Zell's relief, when he looked up again he had lost that frightening expression and seemed to be back to his nonchalant self. "Whatever, just giving ya a warning. Be stupid and don't take it, I don't care." He turned to go, tossing a packet onto Squall's bed. It made a soft, metallic clinking.

            "Er--" Zell said to his departing back. "You should go see Doc K again. For the cut. You probably ripped the stitches. Uh, you know. Cuz it might scar."

            Seifer tossed a harsh chuckle over his shoulder and strode on without looking back. "Oh, I hope so. I really do."

            Zell was alone again in the stuffy room, clutching his vase of nearly dead flowers. He put it slowly in the sink, then turned and regarded the packet. Squall was still asleep.

He touched it, then picked it up, nervously glancing about to make sure Squall wouldn't suddenly wake up, or Seifer wouldn't suddenly come back.

            _What could Seifer possibly be giving Squall?_

            The package opened easily, and the contents slithered in a silvery rush into his hand. A necklace, a heavy silver chain with a stylized lion. Squall's necklace. 

            _Why would--?_

Squall made a soft sound, and Zell nearly dropped in his haste to put it back. He nervously placed the package exactly where it had been in case Seifer came back to check, and backed out of the room, nearly running into Instructor Trepe, who was on her way in. She gave him a surprised look as he hurried away without a word.

            There was way too much to consider.


	2. Chapter 2

Inconsequential Matters: Part 2

FF8 Zell/Seifer (more or less)

By rtuko

rtuko@email.com

Notes: There wasn't meant to be a second chapter. Really. I meant the first to be the first and only one; I was only finishing up what I had started a very long time ago. But then…. The other day I stopped at an electronics store and spent money I really couldn't afford to spend, and bought FF8 for PS. (Previously had only played on computer.) I took it home and watched the opening sequence…. And my lil Seifer n Squall bunnies began popping all over the place again. 

So. There will be at least one more chapter. Maybe two. And then, perhaps my FF8 ghosts will be laid to rest.

***************

He doesn't know how it started. 

He would definitely _like_ to know, as Seifer is bent at an unnatural angle backwards over the sink, gray eyes wide, his slack mouth being devoured. His hands are braced on the sinks next to him, and he can't push Zell away, because otherwise he'd fall.

Zell releases the crumpled material of Seifer's coat and grips Seifer's shoulders instead, shoving him further backwards towards the mirror until Seifer's head bangs smartly against it as his hands slip. Seifer's mouth is wet and hot, his lips soft and his teeth jarringly hard, and Zell more than makes up for Seifer's immobile surprise with his own tongue.

Then Seifer seems to snap back to what is happening to him, and lets go of the sink with one hand, slipping down a bit, and tries to shove Zell backwards. But his leverage is too weak, and Zell too heavy and strong, so he only succeeds in sprawling even more ungainly backwards. Zell could almost hear Seifer's spine creak. 

Seifer's eyes are narrowed and hard now, no longer the round Os of surprise they were only moments ago. His teeth click shut and if Zell hadn't withdrawn his tongue propituously, he would have lost it. "_Fuck off_," Seifer says, muffled around Zell's lips, and, instead of trying to push Zell away with his freed hand, this time punches Zell as hard as he can in the ear while twisting to kick him as well.

Zell lets go and steps backwards, his turn to look shocked and surprised, his ear ringing.

"What the _fuck_, Dincht?" Seifer snarls, wiping saliva from his mouth. He turns and spits several times into the sink.

"No-nothing," Zell stammers. The taste of Seifer is still on his tongue, illicit cigarettes and cadged hot dogs, coupled with the sweetness of soda.

Seifer shoves him backwards, and keeps shoving him across the restroom, his eyes stormy and opaque and mouth set into a thin white line, until Zell slips and falls on his ass onto the beige tiled floor. Seifer picks him up and slams him into the wall. "Don't _ever_--," Seifer seems at a loss for words, "You fucking _freak_."

"You liked it," Zell flings back. He knows he should be afraid, but that emotion seems to have been lost long ago when he first walked in through the restroom door and noticed a flash of smirking blonde and gray. 

Seifer shakes him hard, and even as his teeth rattle in his head, he can't stop staring challengingly into those furious eyes.  "You are so fucked up," Seifer says, wonderingly. His eyes traces Zell's fearless expression and something changes in his face that is akin to bewilderment. "What, fuck me, fuck Squall? By _proxy_?"

Zell only rests his hands on the wall behind him, damp fingers leaving moist ghost-prints on the cool tile, and smiles humorlessly. 

Seifer only stares at him. "Most people go with roses."  

"Daffodils."

"He doesn't even know your _name_."

Zell shrugs, and continues to stare at Seifer with those piercing and strange blue eyes. 

"Are you deaf? I told you he doesn't like--"

The door whishes open and Squall blinks as he takes in the tableau: the taller blonde leaning over the smaller, faces inches apart, both looking absurdly surprised and a little guilty. Squall swallows his own surprise, and the corner of his mouth draws down ever so slightly, which only Seifer understands to mean disapproval. His eyes flick smoothly from Seifer, as if he doesn't exist, to the other cadet. "Dincht. We need to go meet Instructor Trepe." He avoids Seifer's eyes, who crosses his arms and leans against the wall, staring at him with accusation and something else Squall can't identify. 

"See? He _does_ know," Zell steps away from Seifer and moves into the hall, giving the blonde a triumphant smile as he goes. 

They let a moment of awkward silence go by as Seifer keeps an eyebrow raised and waits for Squall's patience to break. Squall doesn't ask, however; he only nods once with the corner of his mouth still drawn down, and steps backwards so the door closes once again. 


End file.
